


Aftermath

by storyspinner70



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 19:37:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10343163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyspinner70/pseuds/storyspinner70
Summary: an SPN J2 Secret Santa gift for smalltrolvenSam's POV on the aftermath of Demon Dean's adventures in living.





	

**Title:** Aftermath  
**Gifter:** [](http://storyspinner70.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://storyspinner70.livejournal.com/)**storyspinner70**  
**Giftee:** **smalltrolven**  
**Pairing/Characters:** Dean/Sam  
**Medium:** Fic  
**Prompt:** Bunker not feeling safe for either brother after Dean's demon rampage  
**Likes Used:** domestic, fix-its (sort of...more or less...lol)  
**Rating:** PG-13 for brief language and passing glimpses of wincest  
**Summary:** Sam's POV on the aftermath of Demon Dean's adventures in living.  
  
**A/N:** Happy holidays!!!!! Sorry for any mistakes! I hope this is even close to what you like smalltrolven, thank you for such awesome prompts to choose from!  
  
  
They've tried, you know, to put it all behind them. They would laugh and chatter like nothing ever happened - like Dean never went black-eyed and dirty; like he didn't cast aside everything that ever meant anything to him. It wasn't him. He didn't mean it. It was just...  
  
But that's the thing, isn't it? It _was_ him. Black eyed, snarling him, but it was him all the same. Even after everything, Sam always assumed he was the one that could bring Dean back from anything - one look at his most impressive bitchface, the soft yet commanding tone of his voice and a brotherly hug and, poof, all is well.  
  
It took a bit more this time. Truth of the matter is, Sam hadn't been 100% certain it was going to work this time at all. Maybe that's part of what had him on edge. After everything they'd been through, there wasn't a time that Sam didn't wholeheartedly believe that no matter what happened to them, his brother would always be A Good Man - very flawed, very human, but always A Good Man.  
  
But now every time he thinks too hard he sees Dean's eyes go black as night and his heart go empty. He remembers his panic to "fix him". He remembers the damage.  
  
When they moved into the bunker, Sam wasn't thrilled. Dean though, lord knows Dean was. He had his own room for the first time since he was tall enough to reach the door knob without stretching and settled in quickly and cleanly. The bunker gave him order. It gave him a permanent place. He kept his room military neat and just exactly how he wanted it. He was still just as close to Sam, but had the one thing he'd been missing for years - a place to get privacy that wasn't the Impala or a smoke-filled bar.  
  
Everybody knows the boys are close. More than a few know just how close. No one speaks of it, because the boys keep the world safe, and the least their friends can do is keep their mouth shut if the brothers forget themselves for a moment and linger a little too long or laugh a little too loudly or touch a little too much. The boys keep them breathing a little bit longer, so it's not too much to ask for this one little thing, right?  
  
Before he died, Kevin remarked one time that Sam's room always looked like he never slept there and asked how he kept it so lived in but unrumpled when Kevin's room always looked like a bomb exploded in it. The boys died laughing over that, and Kevin just shook his head a little and moved on to something else - the Winchesters were always talking somewhere above his head and he figured it was just something else he'd missed. It wasn't until he was a ghost he learned the truth - well that and the fact that Sam did a lot more begging than Kevin ever would have thought he would - if, you know, he'd ever thought about something like that. Which he didn't. At all. Not even a little bit.  
  
It took Sam a little longer to call it home, but it soon became just that. Even when he murdered Kevin (fine, _Gadreel_ did, but he still blames his brother and himself for that death and always will), it was still home to him - a touchstone. Theirs. A place they _belonged_ at the end of every hunt.  
  
But a home is never a home without Dean. No building would ever be important to him without Dean in it. But Dean had to go get evil and now everything was off kilter. Sam slept in his own room every night since Dean came back, and Dean let him.  
  
Guilt, anger and fear filled them both up, and it got harder to pretend everything was a-ok in Winchesterland. Sam wished - for lots of things really, but mostly that he could just forget the things Dean did and said, and that he could stop wondering, "what if". As fucked up as it sounded, being a demon seemed to fit Dean like a glove. He was as good a demon as he was a hunter. Maybe better. And Sam couldn't help thinking how things would have gone down if demon Dean had really, really wanted Sam dead.  
  
Sam told himself over and over it was Dean's true love for him that kept him alive. That he mattered too much, even to demon Dean, and that was what held Dean back, but if he were honest with himself, he knew that wasn't entirely true. It was a lot to work through.  
  
And Dean, Dean who blamed himself for everything on the best of days, wasn't taking trying to kill his baby brother and lover very well either. Sam had seen him sneak into his room at night - every night. The first few times it happened, he startled, thanking his hunter training for teaching him stealth so Dean didn't notice he was actually awake. Sam's first thought was that demon Dean was back and coming to finish the job, but then he noticed the look in Dean's eyes - pain, fear, loathing.  
  
Dean was blaming himself for destroying what they had, and Sam wasn't sure he could help him through it this time, because, truth was, he sort of blamed Dean too. The relish demon Dean had for his life and how easy it was to abandon then try to kill Sam was just a little too hard to forget. But Sam was trying. God knows Sam was trying.  
  
It was Saturday. The bunker was crypt silent. No music, no yelling about food or beer or porn, no flirting, nothing. Sam had had enough.The bunker was no longer home. It had become a place to sleep while they ignored what was really going on in their lives. A place to hide instead of a place to _live_.  
  
Dean was in his room, headphones on and music up so loud Sam could hear it, tinny and strange, from the doorway. Dean's eyes were closed, but Sam could tell from the almost imperceptible stiffening of his body that Dean knew he was there. Sam stepped forward and put his hand on Dean's boot. Dean's eyes squeezed a little tighter but he took off his headphones.  
  
"I miss you."  
  
"You shouldn't."  
  
"Come back."  
  
Dean's face started to crumble and Sam crawled over his rigid body. "Come back."  
  
"But after everything I..."  
  
"I know." Sam kissed him. Dean kissed him back. The world didn't end, nor did it begin again.  
  
Things weren't "fixed" - probably never would be, not really. But this was just one more betrayal in a long list - from both of them - and it probably wouldn't be the last. At the end of the day, Sam was still breathing, so Sam was still loving Dean. And Dean. After all the years of leaving, coming back, lies, distrust, possession, anger and despair, he still blamed himself for most of it. Even the things that rested squarely on Sam's shoulders, Dean found some way to carry at least some of the blame for them.  
  
But that was okay. They were okay. As okay as they'd ever be.  
  
As he watched Dean sleep, he could see the exhaustion he'd missed before. He traced the lines on Dean's face with his fingers, and smiled when Dean batted away his hand, grumbling in his half sleep about "Samantha" and something that sounded like "stop staring at me while I sleep, creeper".  
  
They loved each other and always would. If demon Dean couldn't kill that, nothing would. Of that, Sam was sure. Just as he was sure of one other thing: his brother was and always would be A Good Man. He could only hope he wasn't he only one.


End file.
